Delegation can be hard

Do you often feel overwhelmed with the amount of work you have to do on a daily basis? Are you taking on too much and not delegating where you can?

As business owners, we often fall into the trap of, “no one can do it as well as me”. Yes this is true. No one will care about your company like you do. The question becomes, can they do an equally good job at the tasks you ask them to do.

At a certain point it no longer becomes cost effective for you to work on certain projects verses others. For example if you bill a client an hourly rate, would your time be better suited working on the client projects, verses you filing papers in the office? Make a certain amount of money or file? Seems pretty simple math to me. You want to do what is going to make you the most money. I know the thought of giving up control and delegating scares you. I have heard all the objections, “No one can do it as well as me”, “What if they do it wrong, its going to cause me issues”, “I don’t have time to train someone, its just easier for me to do it myself.” All very valid points. Yes you care about your business more than anyone, but that does not mean whomever you delegate to wont do a good job. You chose them for a reason, they must have some type of work ethic, otherwise they would be gone. You can set up a checks and balance system that would allow you to review all work before it is submitted. And finally if you don’t have time to train someone, how are you doing the work now yourself?

By taking the time out to properly train them, will in time, free you up to work on more important areas of your business. When you are ready to delegate, remember perfection is impossible. What you need is to get the job done, and done well. Take time to establish a standard of quality, and set a time frame for reaching it. Once you establish the expectations, work with your staff decide how to carry out the project. Develop comprehensive instructions, ensure your staff have all the information needed to complete the job. Speak with them and ensure they understand and are willing to take the task on.

As you hand over more responsibility, it’s important to understand that learning new skills sometimes includes making mistakes. Don’t punish employees who make a good-faith effort to do things right. Take the time to re evaluate what went wrong, how can you fix it and learn from it. Don’t think of delegating as shirking your responsibilities, think of it as grooming your staff to be more valuable. You are enabling your staff to stretch their skills and judgment. When people feel they are needed and appreciated they will work harder for you. By giving them more responsibility you are saying to them, “I value you.”

Set up a system of checks and balances. In the beginning it may need to be more frequent as everyone is still learning their new assignments. You can have weekly staff meetings, that turn into bi weekly and eventually monthly. You can schedule end of the day progress reports, or check ins. Let everyone know all final work has to be reviewed and signed off on by you, before it is sent out. Yes in the beginning this will take you some time, but I can guarantee it will be far easier to read and edit a report than it will take to write the entire thing.